Project 365 - Day 27 - Custom bokeh

I was reading a recent edition of one of the magazines I subscribe to.  There was an article on custom bokeh in the magazine.  For those who do not know, bokeh is the artistic quality of the blur in the out of focus areas of a picture.  This is something that most photographers strive for, it brings the eye of the viewer back to the subject in a photograph.  Sometimes, the blur can be overdone, and there are ways to add this blur in photoshop.  There's a good explanation on wikipedia that can be found here. 

The article was about how to make a template that covers the front of the lens that allows you to create customized blur.  What the article does not mention is that it works best if you have highlights in your picture that can show off this custom shape.

So today, I took one of my old 52mm filters and put a paper start cutout over it using black construction paper.  I then attached this to my 50mm f1.4 lens and looked for something to shoot.  This would have been a perfect project when the Christmas tree was up as I could have blurred out the tree itself with the lights on and had them all come through as my star.  But alas, this year we actually took the tree down on time.  So I had to improvise.

Sonia has a cake stand that has electronic candles on it that go in votive holders.  So I used the electronic candles, and placed them under brandy glasses from our crystal.  I then started experimenting with different techniques, but ended up here with this picture.

f1.4 to take advantage of the largest aperture of the lens.  2 second shutter to allow the light from the candles to play on the wall.  I then used my flashlight to paint the figurine in the foreground.

You can see the shape of the cutout on the base of the brandy glasses (remember, they are inverted) and also playing on the wall behind.  I put a piece of foamcore behind the glasses, but this took away from the effect.  Also, I was not able to see the total effect until I had the image on my big monitor on my computer.

Here's the shot:

 

And, as per usual, here are some setup shots.  Not much in the way of actual setup, but you can see the cutout over the lens and the candle/brandy glass I was talking about.